The Age of Fable eBook

in the East. At last in the fifteenth century,
a Portuguese traveller, Pedro Covilham, happening
to hear that there was a Christian prince in the country
of the Abessines (Abyssinia), not far from the Red
Sea, concluded that this must be the true Prester
John. He accordingly went thither, and penetrated
to the court of the king, whom he calls Negus.
Milton alludes to him in “Paradise Lost,”
Book xi., where, describing Adam’s vision
of his descendants in their various nations and cities,
scattered over the face of the earth, he says,—­

“... Nor did his eyes not
ken Th’ empire of Negus, to his utmost
port, Ercoco, and the less maritime kings, Mombaza
and Quiloa and Melind.”

CHAPTER XXXVIII

NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY—­VALHALLA—­THE VALKYRIOR

NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY

The stories which have engaged our attention thus
far relate to the mythology of southern regions.
But there is another branch of ancient superstitions
which ought not to be entirely overlooked, especially
as it belongs to the nations from which we, through
our English ancestors, derive our origin. It
is that of the northern nations, called Scandinavians,
who inhabited the countries now known as Sweden, Denmark,
Norway, and Iceland. These mythological records
are contained in two collections called the Eddas,
of which the oldest is in poetry and dates back to
the year 1056, the more modern or prose Edda being
of the date of 1640.

According to the Eddas there was once no heaven above
nor earth beneath, but only a bottomless deep, and
a world of mist in which flowed a fountain. Twelve
rivers issued from this fountain, and when they had
flowed far from their source, they froze into ice,
and one layer accumulating over another, the great
deep was filled up.

Southward from the world of mist was the world of
light. From this flowed a warm wind upon the
ice and melted it. The vapors rose in the air
and formed clouds, from which sprang Ymir, the Frost
giant and his progeny, and the cow Audhumbla, whose
milk afforded nourishment and food to the giant.
The cow got nourishment by licking the hoar frost
and salt from the ice. While she was one day
licking the salt stones there appeared at first the
hair of a man, on the second day the whole head, and
on the third the entire form endowed with beauty,
agility, and power. This new being was a god,
from whom and his wife, a daughter of the giant race,
sprang the three brothers Odin, Vili, and Ve.
They slew the giant Ymir, and out of his body formed
the earth, of his blood the seas, of his bones the
mountains, of his hair the trees, of his skull the
heavens, and of his brain clouds, charged with hail
and snow. Of Ymir’s eyebrows the gods formed
Midgard (mid earth), destined to become the abode
of man.